12.13.2013

Congratulations to Nicola Corbin, a public relations PhD student who successfully defended her dissertation earlier this semester.

Her dissertation, titled “The Publicness of the Private: Articulations of Colorism in Popular Media, 1982-2012,” traces the discursive production of colorism, or intra-race discrimination in select popular media, and the ways in which it is gendered.

“As almost every new PhD might tell you, finally being done is so surreal...The one thing of which I am certain is that it was certainly not a journey that I walked alone, even though it felt like it at times. I must recognize that I had lots of support and encouragement from family and friends. Grady faculty members Leara Rhodes and Jay Hamilton provided so much mental and practical support through this process. I will be eternally grateful to them.”

Committee chair Dr. Jay Hamilton only had positive things to say about Corbin and the dissertation process as a faculty member:

“A high point of any graduate faculty member's career is to see one's doctoral advisees finally shed the "student" role and become independent scholars and thinkers in their own right. Nicola conducted a calm, poised, thoughtful and insightful conversation and exchange with her senior faculty committee members about her work.

Few people outside the process know the cost for students in time, money and many hours of extremely hard research, thinking and writing leading up to this meeting. But Dr. Nicola Corbin, Ph.D., does now. And, like all Grady College Ph.D.s, Dr. Corbin will exemplify the excellence of this graduate program wherever she goes. “

Corbin is now currently an assistant professor teaching public relations and advertising at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.